The Smoke Ring

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The Smoke Ring is a 1987 science fiction novel by Larry Niven. Like much of Niven's work, the story is heavily influenced by the setting: a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star. It is a sequel to The Integral Trees.

[edit] Plot introduction

The story is set at the fictional neutron star Levoy's Star (abbreviated "Voy"). The gas giant Goldblatt's World (abbreviated "Gold") orbits the star just outside its Roche limit. While Gold's gravity is enough to keep it from being pulled apart by Voy's tidal forces, it is insufficient to hold its atmosphere, which has been pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy. This orbiting air forms a ring known as the Gas Torus. The Gas Torus is huge—one million kilometers thick—but most of it is too thin to be inhabitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life.

There is no "ground" in the Smoke Ring; it is a world consisting entirely of sky. Thus, most animals can fly, even the fish. Furthermore, since the Smoke Ring is in orbit, it is in free fall. There is no "up" or "down", only "in" or "out" from Voy. Most animals have trilateral symmetry, allowing them to see in all directions.

Most plants in the Smoke Ring are quite fragile, as they don't have to support their own weight. A notable exception to this rule are the eponymous Integral Trees. These are trees that are up to 100 kilometers long. Tidal locking causes them to be oriented radially, with one end pointing in toward Voy and one end pointing out. The ends of the tree experiece a tidal force of up to 1/5 g. Each end consists of a leafy "tuft", which is where photosynthesis occurs.

Each tuft of a tree is 50 kilometers from the tree's center of mass. Thus, a tuft is either orbiting too slowly (the in tuft) or too quickly (the out tuft). Since the atmosphere at either end is moving at its local orbital speed, the ends of trees are subject to a constant hurricane-force wind. This wind bends the ends into the shape of an integral symbol: ∫.

The Smoke Ring was colonized 500 years prior to the beginning of the story by a crew of 20 astronauts. Their descendants have adapted to the free-fall environment by growing taller and developing prehensile toes.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This book takes place about fifteen years after the end of the original story, when survivors of the Dalton-Quinn tree, a few Carther States jungle dwellers, and Two London Tree Citizens have settled on a new tree. This 'Citizen's Tree' has become a stable community which some believe may be too small to survive in the long run.

Kendy, the recorded personality of a citizen of "The State" who exists in the computer of the original space-ship that colonized the Smoke Ring, has become impatient. He decides to re-establish contact with Citizen's Tree. Kendy manipulates a group into making contact with "The Admirality", a neighboring civilization at Gold's L4 Lagrange Point (which referred to as "the Clump"). The group explores this more advanced civilization with a mixture of wonder and trepidation.

Although much of the story is a sort of "travelogue" exploring the Smoke Ring and the technology used in the unique environment, The Smoke Ring does spend more time on story and character development than The Integral Trees. One of the drivers for the story follows the latest operator of "the silver suit", the Citizen's Tree's working spacesuit. Few are capable of operating the suit due to its size, as most humans in the Smoke Ring are much too large to fit into them. The job goes to the occasionally-born dwarfs. A major sub-plot develops around the latest silver suit operator's attempts to infiltrate The Admirality to gain information, and the The Admirality's near obsession with capturing the Citizen's Tree's spacesuit.

This story gives much more notice to the story of Kendy and the original mission. The chain of events that led to the colonization of the Smoke Ring through a "mutiny" on the ship is explored. After retrieving the crew's own records of the events, Kendy realizes that the crew had not mutinied at all, and that he had forced them off the ship, believing this to be in keeping with his orders from Earth. This was apparently blocked from his memory, and he suffers a form of breakdown when he learns (or re-learns) the truth.